Posts
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10 Contemporary Fiction Novels by Black Authors to Add to Your TBR
Hello again! I’m back with a book recs post, and this time I’m hoping to highlight some writers of color that you NEED to be aware of. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few months (figuratively, of course; COVID-19 has forced us all to live under a rock in an almost literal sense), you’ve noticed a cultural reawakening to the systemic oppression and silencing of people of color — especially Black people — in the United States. While civil rights and restorative justice are at the forefront of the movement for equality, every aspect of our lives is affected by white supremacy, and what we read…
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Classics for Your 2020 Reading List That Are Actually Enjoyable
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Valentine, by Elizabeth Wetmore
“The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last forever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year – the days when summer is changing into autumn – the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change.” From the book jacket: “It’s February 1976, and Odessa, Texas, stands on the cusp of the next great oil boom. While the town’s men embrace the coming prosperity, its women intimately know and fear the violence that always seems to follow. In the early hours of the morning, after Valentine’s Day, fourteen-year-old Gloria Ramirez appears on the front porch of Mary Rose Whitehead’s ranch house, broken…
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How (and Why) to Write in Books
The idea of writing in books might make you cringe. Or, you may find making notes, highlighting, and underlining is your preferred way of interacting with a text. I was firmly in the anti-annotation crowd until a few years ago when I read an article much like this one elevating the role a reader takes on when annotating. A passive reader simply takes in what is on the page, but an annotator is communing with the text; their notes, asterisks, and underlines are a way of conversing with the author. Once I started to think of it this way, the idea of annotating a book felt much less blasphemous and…
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Classics for Your 2020 Reading List That Are Actually Enjoyable
If one of your 2020 reading goals is to beef up your repertoire, I humbly present this list of capital-C Classics that, at least to me, are actually fun/compelling reads. If, like me, you somehow missed out on reading these in high school, I’d definitely suggest you give these books a shot! To make the list, each book had to (1) have been read by me at some point, (2) be a relatively easy read, and (3) be relatively short. No War and Peace here! Though I’ll probably take a stab at my favorite “dense but worth it” list in the near future, don’t you worry. Pride and Prejudice, by…
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10 Contemporary Fiction Novels by Black Authors to Add to Your TBR
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The Throne of Glass Series: My Latest Obsession
Sometimes, I get a book stuck in my head. It’s even harder to shake than a song. This year, my “It’s a Small World” (sorry) has been Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass series. I checked out the first book, Throne of Glass, from my local library last summer, and it’s safe to say I was underwhelmed. The novel’s synopsis and high ratings had me pumped for a thrilling cloak-and-dagger tale of the world’s greatest assassin fighting for her survival in a medieval, tyrannical kingdom. What’s not to love? However, I honestly can’t figure out what made me stick with the book to its clumsy end. Throne of Glass is…
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How to Find More Time to Read
The eternal problem: how do we make time to pursue our bookish hobbies? Being an adult means our days are crammed with things we “have” to do: working, cooking, cleaning, family and social obligations, exercising, etc. etc. And that’s without even bringing kids or pets into the picture! It’s easy to fall out of the habit of daily reading, and before we know it, a year has gone by and we haven’t read more than the first few pages of a novel. For the last few years, I’ve had to make a concerted effort to bring regular reading back into my life. I join the Goodreads reading challenge every year,…
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All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr (2014)
“What do we call visible light? We call it color. But the electromagnetic spectrum runs to zero in one direction and infinity in the other, so really, children, mathematically, all of light is invisible.” When people tell you to read a book, listen to them. I’ve been getting recommendations for this one for a while, but I put it off because it seemed like a depressing read. I like historical fiction, but the sound of this novel — set in a small coastal French town during its occupation by and liberation from the Nazis — did not excite me. It seemed dark and depressing. However, I could not have been…
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Bookish but not snobbish
My bookish worldview (and current top-10 book list)!
